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The localizing of details
Fundamental Device—LOCALIZING OF DETAILS. This device is perhaps the most common of all. The first impulse of the mind is merely to perceive the details, and the next is to give them "a local habitation." A. MODEL. Perhaps there is no more impressive scene on earth than the solitary extent of the Campagna of Rome under evening light. Let the reader imagine himself for a moment withdrawn from the sounds and motion of the living world, and sent forth alone into this wild and wasted plain. The earth yields and crumbles beneath his foot, tread he never so lightly, for its substance is white, hollow, and carious, like the dusty wreck of the bones of men. The long knotted grass waves and tosses feebly in the evening wind, and the shadows of its motion shake feverishly along the banks of ruin that lift themselves to the sunlight. Hillocks of mouldering earth heave around him, as if the dead beneath were struggling in their sleep ; scattered blocks of black stone, four-square, remnants of mighty edifices, not one left upon another, lie upon them to keep them down. A dull purple poisonous haze stretches level along the desert, 'veiling its spectral wrecks of massy ruins, on whose rents the red light rests, like dying fire on defiled altars. The blue ridge of the Alban Mount lifts itself against a solemn space of green, clear, quiet sky. Watch-towers of dark clouds stand steadfastly along the promontories of the Apen¬nines. From the plain to the mountains, the shattered aqueducts, pier beyond pier, melt into the darkness, like shadowy and countless troops of funeral mourners, pass¬ing from a nation's grave. -JOHN RUSKIN, Modern Painters, Preface to the Second Edition. SUGGESTIONS.- Point out the expressions which localize each detail. What details are located with reference to the imagined spectator? What is the description-motive of this paragraph ? the fundamental quality ? B. EXAMPLE FOR ANALYSIS. With many variations, suggested by the nature of his building-materials, diversity of climate, and a dif¬ferent mode of social life, Governor Bellingham had planned his new habitation after the residences of gentlemen of fair estate in his native land. Here, then, was a wide and reasonably lofty hall, extending through the whole depth of the house, and forming a medium of general communication, more or less directly, with all the other apartments. At one extremity, this spa¬cious room was lighted by the windows of the two towers, which formed a small recess on either side of the portal. At the other end, though partly muffled by a curtain, it was more powerfully illuminated by one of those embowed hall-windows which we read of in old books, and which was provided with a deep and cush¬ioned seat. Here, on the cushion, lay a folio tome, probably of the Chronicles of England, or other such substantial literature. . . . . On the table — in token that the sentiment of old English hospitality had not been left behind—stood a large pewter tankard. . . . . On the wall hung a row of portraits, repre¬senting the forefathers of the Bellingham lineage, some with armor on their breasts, and others with stately ruffs and robes of peace. . . . . At about the center of the oaken panels, that lined the hall, was suspended a suit of mail, not, like the pictures, an ancestral relic, but of the most modern date ; for it had been manufac¬tured by a skilful armorer in London, the same year in which Governor Bellingham came over to New England. — NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, The Scarlet Letter.•